As a critic and teacher, Joseph Marx (1882-1964) was one of the most implacable opponents of the second Viennese school around the time of the first world war.

Marx battled against Schoenberg and his pupils on every front, refusing to accept the existence of music that did not embrace tonality. As you would expect, his own works were blamelessly late-romantic in style, though the succulent melodies and lush orchestrations are overlaid with the colouristic devices of Debussy.

The Nature Trilogy belongs to the 1920s; Marx conceived it as a unity, but the writing made such demands on orchestral players that the movements were only played individually and were often cut as well.

This is the first recording of the complete work, all 65 minutes of it, and Steven Sloane and his Bochum orchestra make a good case for keeping it on the edge of the repertoire. There are no truly memorable ideas or real sparks of originality, but the music passes pleasantly enough.